Heartache
by J. Lynn
Summary: Hank returns after nine months in Scotland and Bobby thinks about what's changed.


**Heartache  
J. Lynn  
  
  
** Disclaimer: If I owned them then I would have killed of Opal in the most gruesome way possible.   
  
This has no particular 'verse' so please don't ask me which one. This is dedicated to Jane St. Clair, who's Bobby/Hank fics are the most amazing things I've ever read.   
  
  
  
Hank's home. He's been home for a whole... three hours, according to the Pinky and the Brain watch on Bobby's wrist.   
  
Hank gave him that watch last year for his sixteenth birthday. He even souped it up for him. Now it says a different part of the "What'll we do tonight Brain?" bit every fifteen minutes, and "Narf!" on the hour.   
  
Hank spent three days with the lab door locked getting it to work just right. Bobby almost feels like crying when he thinks about that. He doesn't think anybody has ever put so much thought, much less time, into making him happy.   
  
But Hank's like that. Hank's spent hours upon hours watching Red Dwarf reruns with Bobby, taking him to see the new Jim Carrey movie, even though he hates Jim Carrey, covering for him when Scott's trying to find out who put every single pair of underwear in the house in the big freezer out back, and playing endless rounds of Egyptian Rat Screw before stealing the keys and breaking curfew to make a midnight twinkie run while debating the various merits of the early Bare Naked Ladies CD's. And it's the hours he spends just doing the things Bobby likes to do that Bobby can't understand. Hank's a genius, he loves doing smart things, he's efficient and meticulous and would cheerfully spend his entire life behind a microscope using words with forty-two different syllables. It just doesn't make sense that he'll spend hours doing things with and for Bobby when there must be so much else Bobby's sure he'd rather be doing.   
  
It makes Bobby feel special, like the most important thing in the world. In Hank's world. He can't quite understand, but Bobby knows he loves Hank for it.   
  
And maybe that's why he's sitting on the dock looking at the lake, instead of spending every moment Hank's out of the Professor or Scott's office trying talk a blue ear off, wondering just when he fell for his best friend, and why he didn't notice it before.   
  
It must have been there in the nine months Hank was in Scotland working with Moira, he just didn't notice it. Sure he missed seeing his own personal cookie monster every day in person, vid calls just weren't the same, he missed having one person in the house who didn't tell him to get lost or to grow up after the first five minutes, he missed feeling like he had his own tiny niche where he belonged next to Hank, and yeah when he heard that Hank'd be staying in Scotland for an extra three months back in July he spent the next two days in bed under the covers pretending he was having a massive recreation of the Last Battle on Endor whenever someone came in the room. But he can't remember ever feeling like this.   
  
When the van drove up and Hank climbed out Bobby could feel his heart stop, and then crack with sheer emotion, before starting up a broken rhythm to match. And right then he knew he couldn't ever live without Hank, even if he just showed up once every nine months, because even the thought of Bobby without Hank permanently is enough to make him feel like dying.   
  
When Bobby thinks about going in before he can sort this out the broken beat aches a bit more.   
  
He doesn't know if he can ever sort this out.   
  
And Bobby feels sick, and nauseous, and happy, and sad, and the only thing he feels like doing is crying for sheer happiness and brokenness. But he's seventeen now and that's to old to cry. Even if the thought of being enveloped in another big blue hug that is everything he wants but still not quite _it_, is enough to make him bite his lips so that whatever this is he's feeling can't get out.   
  
He can hear footsteps crunching over the gravel path to the dock. Bobby wipes his face, and discovers that despite being seventeen apparently he's still the baby X-Man. Hopefully whoever's coming will just pass on by to the boat house. He doesn't feel like he can be Happy!Bobby right now, and all the other Bobby's tend to make everyone but Hank think he needs to talk to the Professor about whatever's supposed to be wrong. Bobby briefly wonders what normal people do who don't have their own in house therapist. Probably lie less believably.   
  
"Bobby?"   
  
It's Scott. Bobby can deal with Scott. Scott was the one who found him shaking in the woods after his powers first manifested. He was nine, and fourteen year old Scott just seemed so strong then, like a big brother who he could bug, but would always be there for him. Bobby knows Scott loves him in that big brother way, and that makes him one of the few people he can deal with right now. After all, when you're flipping out and can't tell your best friend you go talk to your brother. Big brothers have to listen and comfort and give advice and take care of you till you're ready to get out from under the covers. It's their job.   
  
"Hey," Bobby hates how wobbly his voice sounds, but it's Scott so it'll be alright.   
  
He can see Scott settle beside him out of the corner of his eye. A leather jacket covered arm goes around his shoulders to pull him into a hug and Bobby realizes just how cold he was. Bobby thinks that's weird because he doesn't get cold, he likes cold, but maybe it's not the outside kind of cold.   
  
"It's good to have Hank back," Scott's voice is warm and smooth and starts to put things in the right place again. At least the ones that will fit.   
  
"Yeah... Scott?"   
  
"Hmm?"   
  
"I don't know what to do. Hank's back and something's changed... _I've_ changed."   
  
"Every one changes, I wouldn't worry to much. I mean, do you think anything you could have done would be big enough hurt Hank? Your friendship?"   
  
And suddenly Bobby can't breathe, because all this time he's been thinking about how he would handle this, not what Hank would think. After all, Hank's always been able to handle Bobby's weirdness better than anyone, even Bobby. But what if this does what all the silliness and annoyingness and time-wasting couldn't? What if Hank can't handle this and goes back to Scotland for good?   
  
In the middle of his total wig-out Bobby feels like dying of sheer misery.   
  
"Bobby? Bobby?"   
  
"It can't, oh God, it can't - I won't tell him, I won't ever tell him - I mean what if he goes back to Scotland and decides to stay so he can't see me? I can't tell him, he has to be here! I nee-"   
  
Bobby can feel himself hyperventilating, words running together and he feels dizzy because of the panic.   
  
"Bobby!" Scott's shaking him, making some of the spinning pieces stop to listen to him for a minute before it'll starts up again. "Breathe!"   
  
Bobby breathes.   
  
"Now," Scott says after a minute that seems to stretch forever, "what's wrong? Why do you think Hank would leave?"   
  
So Bobby tells him. He tells him about how his heart stopped when he saw Hank, and how he never thought heartache was anything more than a figure of speech, but now he gets it because his heart aches so badly he doesn't think he can stand it. He doesn't know how to deal with it himself yet. And what if this makes his best friend in the world, his only friend not want to be friends anymore because he can't deal with it any better than Bobby?   
  
He babbles out all his fears and feelings and Scott just holds him and lets him talk until he starts repeating himself because that just makes him start getting more upset. And then they just sit there and Scott talks in his most soothing voice, the one that can always calm Bobby down, the one that he used to get Bobby to crawl out from under the brackets he was hiding in eight years ago, the voice he will always trust to tell him the all the right things that Scott's truthful soul can find anywhere in the situation. When Scott uses that voice and tells Bobby it's going to be alright, he has to believe him. After all Scott would move heaven and earth to make things better, and if he says it you can trust him whatever the situation.   
  
Soon Bobby's calmed down enough that he doesn't feel like he'll implode on himself. When Scott's watch beeps and says in it's little annoying electronic voice that he has a call from Warren in the war room he's alright with that. He'll just sit out here for a few more minutes before he goes in because he's not quite ready for that.   
  
So Scott leaves Bobby with his jacket, despite the fact that he knows Bobby doesn't get cold. Bobby puts the jacket that's two sizes to big for him on because it makes him feel less cold on the inside, and maybe the smell and feel of Scott that the jacket holds will help keep the suffocating feeling where it belongs.   
  
Twenty minutes later he's still sitting there and he thinks that maybe he can go in soon, but there's something he has to say, even if it's just to himself, because for all the wigging and the babbling with Scott he still hasn't said it, even to himself.   
  
"I love him." The words are whispered out and he feels a tiny bit lighter for just saying it.   
  
"Who?" The question is spoken in an equally low tone from just behind him. It would startle Bobby, but somehow it''s almost expected that Hank would stumble upon him in the one moment he feels like he can say that one little word that was missing.   
  
"You."   
  
fin  
  



End file.
